


I Don't Mind

by RenByHeart



Series: Keepers of Thine Soul [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Panic Attack (Vague in Descrption), Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:30:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3650400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenByHeart/pseuds/RenByHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam had been leaning against the brick with his head tilted toward the sky. He thought about slammed doors, and blood on sheets after a hunt gone wrong. He thought about prank wars and warm laughs that lead to pelting each other with small candies. He thought about thrown fists, angry words, the hot stream of blood down his throat, and rough hands pulling him back from the edge. He remembered the rooms that were to small for two overgrown men that made a living on violence. </p><p>Mostly though, he remembered his brother smelling of sex and the perfume of his latest conquest as he cracked a wildly inappropriate joke that made Sam roll his eyes. They may have been too big for the room, but they had never been too big for each other.   </p><p>Dean. He had thought on that sunny day standing next to a man who didn’t seem to have any concept of family at all. </p><p>“No.” He had replied. “No, I don’t think that it’s strange.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Mind

_To be honest, she was a little disappointed it wasn’t raining when she first saw him. It would have added to the overall picture of misery he made sitting at a bus stop looking like Hell had broken loose all over his life. For all she knew, maybe that hadn’t been to far from the truth._

_Looking at him at the time had made her teeth hurt in sympathy. It had been a deep kind of ache that she normally would have associated with an agonizingly terrible loss. She remembered thinking that it only seemed right that God should have made it rain to match the mood. The fact that He didn’t should have made a bigger statement, but she was atheist, so who cared.  
_

_It looked like he had slept in the Bus Stop Shelter for the better part of a week and even though he wasn’t skeletal by any means, there was a thinness to him that made her think that he hadn’t had a decent meal in a long time. He was filthy and moved politely out of the way when someone else wanted to use the shelter at the same time. It was like he knew his stench would offend the delicate noses of people who thought they were better than him._

_Fucking assholes._

_She hadn’t approached him right away. Some people had tried to give him little tidbits of food from their bags or tried to give him a little money, but he had always smiled tiredly and declined. He never fully animated himself, but he never stayed shut down either. This was a man still bound by pride and she couldn’t find it within herself to take anything away from him._

_So instead, she watched him. Not for long, and not everyday, but she kept an eye on him. Michael, the owner of the gas station that she regularly visited, jokingly made a “Stalker’s Calendar” which he had used every time she loitered around his wares in an effort to see him through the windows. She hadn’t minded, because it helped her keep track of how long the stranger stayed there. One month had turned to two and then two had turned into three. By that third month, Michael was watching out of his own interest rather than to make fun of her._

_The stranger had become a sort of fixture by the fourth month. No one had known his name, but people knew him by his location. He had been deemed safe so no one really paid him any mind, but still noticed when he wasn’t there. He didn’t leave his spot often and she didn’t know where he went when he did, but she had caught him coming back once._

_There hadn’t been anything different about him other than the fact that he seemed to hunch in on himself more. She didn’t know where he got the food to survive, but she did know that it wasn’t enough._

_He had been starting to fade away._

_It wasn’t until the fifth month that she made her move. She hadn’t gone out with the intention to give him anything, but the air was starting to get cold and it seemed only right to give him a chance._

_He had looked up at her as she approached, his brown hair long enough to reach his shoulder blades and matted to his head. Hazel eyes had taken her in warily and he had tried to scoot away in order to give her room._

_She had thrown one of her older brother’s jackets at him and snapped her gum obnoxiously between her teeth. “I’ve got a job that’ll get you minimum wage and an efficiency in the lot behind me that’ll hold you out over winter.” She had said, hip cocked to the side._

_For a moment, she thought he had been about to refuse, but instead he had deflated. Relief was stark in is face and he had stood gingerly to tower over her._

_“Thank you.” He had rasped, voice rough with disuse  
_

_“Don’t thank me yet.” She had replied already leading him away. “I run a tight ship. You fuck me over, you’re ass will be back out on the street, you hear?”_

_“Yes mam.”_

 

**7 months later**

 

The bar was unusually empty for a Friday night. A few of the regulars were scattered around nursing a lonely alcoholic beverage as Sam went around cleaning off tables. Country music was blaring over the radio and Missy, the usual late night waitress, was swinging her hips absently as she looked over her anatomy book. She looked frustrated as she chewed the pen that was hanging from between her lips.

Robert, the cook, was out of sight of the kitchen window, so Sam could only assume that he had gone out back for a smoke. The other waitress, Lex, was probably there too, though she was trying to quit, so she’d be puffing on the end of some vapor thing. She was going on three months without a smoke, a feat evidenced by the golden stars that Gunner liked to put up on the industrial fridge that resided in the shed out back. Lex always complained that she didn’t need to be treated like a preschooler, but Sam knew that she actually liked that someone was keeping track of her progress regardless of the method.

It was dark outside and even though he couldn’t see the clock (which even if he looked it wouldn’t tell him anything, because no matter how many times they fixed it, it was always wrong) he knew it was nearing midnight. Most nights this wouldn’t mean anything, because he usually worked straight on till the early hours, but it was Friday, which meant movie night at Gunner’s.

His mind stuttered to a halt. Gunner was the owner of the bar and was single-handedly the reason he was off the streets. It was her that gathered him out of his position at the Bus Shelter and had not only given him a job, but a place to stay as well. It hadn’t been all out of the goodness of her heart, because the work she gave was hard, but that had made it easier to accept.

She ran two bars (though he only worked at the one in town) and lived in the countryside raising livestock. Since he lived behind her, he helped out as a farm hand and picked up shifts at the bar so he was always busy. She paid fairly for the work though, so it wasn’t all that bad and Sam genuinely liked her.

Gunner wasn’t her real name. It was given to her when she was in the marines and it had just sort of stuck after a while, because some of the other workers that she had hired had been in the force with her.

If someone didn’t know her, they would think her rough around the edges with her no nonsense attitude and carefully maintained appearance of strength. If Sam weren’t almost a foot taller than her and trained just as well, he’d be afraid that she could take him in a fight.

That being said, Gunner was also compassionate. She took in workers and patrons who needed a little push toward a better life. Robert had been a drug addict robbing small gas stations around Chicago when she’d found him. From what he said, it sounded like she had bullied him into being sober and then scared him into staying that way. Sam didn’t think he actually minded that and even sounded relieved that someone cared enough to want him around.

He wasn’t all that sure what was up with Lex, but there were scars aplenty that allowed Sam a few guesses.

Missy had been pregnant and struggling to pay bills. Scared and hurting for money, she had turned to prostitution to keep her son and herself afloat. Gunner had given her an apartment in the city after kicking the shit out of one of the johns that had wanted more than Missy had been willing to give. Shortly after, Gunner helped her get into a Community College.

She had tried to do that for Sam, but he’d quickly shot her down. Something had ached at the thought of going back to college and a part of him knew that he didn’t belong there anymore. Gunner hadn’t been offended and had just shrugged. “Whatever dude.” She had said as she went back to feeding the pigs.

The thing was, she did all these amazing things for the people that she hired, but never really talked about doing it. She just did it and never asked questions, which was something that Sam couldn’t fully wrap his head around.

When he’d first been settling in, he was constantly tensing up with the fear that she was going to ask for his story, but she never did. Instead she just did what she could and never talked about her own personal issues. So while she didn’t know anything about Sam’s history, he also knew almost next to nothing about hers.

“Move it Keith.” A voice husky and feminine like honey said behind him. “I don’t pay you to daydream.” Gunner set a crate up on the counter top that Missy immediately picked up to take into the back.

Gunner shrugged and turned to him, her hip leaning against the counter top. She was beautiful in a sort of non-conventional way. Most would consider her too tall, almost six foot, with auburn hair braided down her back. She wasn’t broad in the sense of being wide, but she was definitely built from having spent many years doing hard work. Her skin was golden like his had been when he’d still lived in California and freckles were scattered over the visible places on her body. Today, she was wearing dark wash blue jeans and a T-shirt that had the _Lord of the Rings_ characters printed on the front.

Sam finished wiping down the table back tense under the startlingly green eyes of his boss. With that done, he threw the rag in the wash bin and pulled off his apron before following Gunner out to her truck.

“Justin is making onions soup and potato skins. “ She said as they pulled out onto the road. “He said he could run out and by you chicken or something if you wanted it.”

That was another thing about her that baffled him. Gunner was unfailingly vegetarian. She could be around meat, and even prepare it, but she refused to eat it.

“Nah. I’m good.” He replied. They were silent after that. Silence was common with them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was a sense of secrecy that they both wanted to keep and it made being in each other’s presence easier.

The house wasn’t a very large one and only had one floor and a wrap around porch. It was tidy, because Justin, Gunner’s older brother, was “obsessive” about it. Those were her words and not his.

When they got inside Justin was at the stove stirring the onion soup. “Heya Keith.” He said waving the slatted spoon at him. The man was older than Gunner by eight years and stood at the same height as Sam. For being related, the siblings didn’t actually look all that much alike. Where she was tan, he was pale. Where her hair bordered on red, his was dark brown. He also lacked the impressive amount of freckles that cursed his sister.

Their eyes, though, they were the same. They were a dark, penetrating green-gold that seemed older than their respective owners.

Robert once told Sam that he thought it was weird that siblings of their age still lived together.

_“The house is too small.” He had said, cigarette hanging from his lips. “There would be no way for them to escape when they got tired of each other. Besides, don’t you think it’s strange for them to still be living together?”_

_Sam had been leaning against the brick with his head tilted toward the sky. He thought about slammed doors, and blood on sheets after a hunt gone wrong. He thought about prank wars and warm laughs that lead to pelting each other with small candies. He thought about thrown fists, angry words, the hot stream of blood down his throat, and rough hands pulling him back from the edge. He remembered the rooms that were to small for two overgrown men that made a living on violence._

_Mostly though, he remembered his brother smelling of sex and the perfume of his latest conquest as he cracked a wildly inappropriate joke that made Sam roll his eyes. They may have been too big for the room, but they had never been too big for each other._

_Dean. He had thought on that sunny day standing next to a man who didn’t seem to have any concept of family at all._

_“No.” He had replied. “No, I don’t think that it’s strange.”_

“Hope you don’t mind watching the _Lord of the Rings_.” Justin said, breaking Sam out of his reverie. “This one’s been in a mood.” To make his point, he put his hand on top of Gunner’s head as she pulled spoons from a drawer. In an irritated movement, she ducked and elbowed him in the ribs. From the way he doubled over and wheezed implied that it hadn’t been a love tap.

Sam didn’t really care about what they watched. He just didn’t want to think about… He didn’t want to think about…

“Nah. I don’t mind.”

 

*

 

Dinner was amazing and the movie was as good as he remembered, but now he was going out the back door to his place of residence.

When Gunner had picked him up off the streets, she had immediately thrown him into a shed that had been converted into an efficiency.

_“Don’t argue with me.” She had said looking larger than life in the doorway of the one room living space. It wasn’t much. There was a bed crammed close to the wall, a single window over a small kitchenette, a small bathroom that had been built on, and a heating/cooling system. When he had first seen it, he hadn’t thought that he would fit comfortably, but to his surprise it wasn’t all that bad.  
_

_“Seriously, don’t argue.” She had continued after he hadn’t responded. It was like she had known that he was thinking about making a run for it despite having followed her that far already. “I’ll be putting you through your paces. You’ll be paying for the room and board with your labor. Just suck it up and take it.”_

_He had just nodded._

_“I hope you don’t mind that it’s so small.”_

_He had looked up at her. If he hadn’t lost faith in them, he’d have thought her some sort of crabby angel. Since he couldn’t stomach comparing her to the holy messenger’s of God, he was at a lost as to how to classify her and his mind had skittered away from the thought that she had looked like..._

_He just shrugged._

_“I don’t mind.”  
_

Opening the door, Sam stepped into his cool abode and unceremoniously flopped onto his bed. It was early, nearing 5 in the morning and he didn’t have to be at the bar until 3 in the afternoon. Gunner liked to work on the farm herself on Saturdays, which meant that Sam was left pretending to sleep for the next few hours.

That also meant thinking about…

He smashed his face into his pillow. There hadn’t been any real intent to do anything while he lay there, but as his chest began to ache with the need to breathe he realized that he really didn’t want to remove the obstruction from his airways.

The thought startled him and he quickly shot up and ran a hand over her face. No. He couldn’t check out yet. There was still a chance that…

No. Don’t think about him.

But was there still a chance? Was it possible that Dean could forgive him enough to call him? Or at least answer Sam’s calls?

Sam had been doing well so far and he hadn’t gone out to drink blood. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t think about it. God, did he think about it, but he knew that he couldn’t. He wanted to preserve the belief that Dean would want him back and he couldn’t do that sucking down poison.

Besides, he had started the apocalypse, so he thought that maybe he deserved to be around to see it. Not that there had been any sign that anything was changing in the world, but Sam could feel it. Could feel it like he could feel the filth and darkness that was clawing at his heart.

Shivers ran down his back at the thought of Lucifer free in the world. He had done that. Shit. He had done that.

Suddenly the walls were too close and panic quickly climbed up his throat forcing out a silent scream. Scrabbling at the door, Sam went spilling out onto the wet grass, but there was no relief. His breath was coming shorter feeling like the pillow was still pressed tightly over his face.

Sweat dripped into his eyes and he tried to make it to his feet. Black spots danced into his vision and he ended up falling to his knees again without making any sort of progress toward safety.

He felt like he was dying.

No. Dying would have felt liberating. It would have been an out. This. This struggle for breath, this blackness that made his limbs shake, this was living. This was his body continuing the battle that he was ready to lose. This was the force making him stay.

Tears leaked from his eyes as he lay on the ground staring up at the sky. It was still dark enough to see the stars, but the sun was starting to come up, making some parts of the blackness fade into a lighter blue. He didn’t know how long he laid there, but almost without noticing he had calmed down enough to make it to his feet.

Weak legs shook as he grabbed onto the side of the shed, but instead of going back into the confining space, he looked up to watch as the stars disappeared as a new day dawned.

Crippling self-hate settled into his heart and Dean appeared in his vision. It wasn’t real, Sam knew, but God did he wish. If he wasn’t trying so hard to not be selfish (and failing) then he would have tried harder to convince his brother that he deserved another chance.

Unfortunately, that would have been a lie and if there was one thing that Sam had learned from everything, it was that lying to his brother only brought pain.

Well, he thought bitterly, so much for not thinking about it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I promise you that the next installment will have more action, but this is just to set the scene. Hope you liked it! Have a lovely day and thank you for reading!


End file.
